[lvoudour]

The major difference between what they're saying and existing fields (history, sociology, STS, economics, urbanism) is that the authors are only talking about looking at successes, not failures. That is juvenile at best, catastrophic at worst. Studying progress without studying failure is incredibly ill-defined, because you have to start by defining progress, and you can't actually guarantee progress without studying failure and studying how to avoid failure.

You perfectly articulated what I wanted to write but couldn't find the right words. Reinventing the wheel is one thing, but reinventing it and adding corners to it is just embarrassing.